Luck On Bulldogs' Side

BREVARD

Close Games Seem To Favor Melbourne's Inexperienced Baseball Squad This Season.

April 14, 2005|By Tom Wyrwich, Special to the Sentinel

Late Monday night, after his Melbourne baseball team pulled out another close one, Pete Donovan belts out a laugh because at this point, there's nothing else left to say.

He's run out of reasons to explain it. How this group of recent junior varsity grads and a coach who hadn't yelled his voice dry at a high school game in more than seven years have put together this season, which improved to 15-6 Monday after a seventh-inning rally turned into an 8-7 victory against Cocoa.

So he laughs, because the season still has a quarter tank left in it, and it could turn around at any second.

"I don't want you to think we think we're good," he says once the laugh ends.

Donovan doesn't. He knows the stats: in 11 one-run games, the Bulldogs are 9-2. With a different series of events, they could be 7-14.

"We've been lucky," Donovan said. "They're having fun. Every game's been close."

For a bunch of kids who had barely seen the field before -- the Bulldogs had only one returning starter, shortstop Jason Stidham -- the victories and close games have replaced susceptibility with confidence.

They managed to pull out many of the early ones while jumping to a 7-2 start, and now they've lost that anxiety when it comes to those important pitches and at-bats in the seventh.

The pitching staff has been about depth, with no one overpowering, but it keeps Melbourne in games. The lineup revolves around Stidham, a junior who is hitting better than .400 with six home runs.

The defense had been a problem early on, but sophomore third baseman Keith Jennings has helped shore it up since he came up from the JV team in March.

Last fall, Jennings was called up to the varsity football team early in the season to replace the injured starting quarterback. After facing Brevard County's blue-chip group of linebackers, those hot shots down the line haven't seemed so daunting.

"It's not like he's deer in the headlights," Donovan said. "He doesn't play scared."

Like his team, Donovan, too, has learned to have fun. He quit as Melbourne's coach in 1997 to coach his children's Little League teams, and he has returned with a calmer attitude.

"I'm enjoying it," he said. "I'm not getting bent out of shape from every little thing. Just coaching my kids helped me learn how I'd want my kids to be treated."